surrender

October 14, 2022.Reading time less than 1 minute.

A little poem for autumn-lovers, and lovers of autumn leaves and love🍁🍂❤️

this dance on the horizons
of time
of all beginnings and endings
is aflame
in crimson windblown waves
and i
i surrender deep
into the dark and soft soil
of
love

lullaby

October 7, 2022.Reading time 2 minutes.

as i travel home
moonlight sparkles upon the river
follow me
and together we sing
a lullaby
to the tired shadows
of night

Do you sometimes wonder where the poems come from? I do, even at times for those which I’ve written myself! The story of the poem above is quite simple, but enchanting.

I was cycling home after work one night, and as I pedaled along Kamogawa (the Kamo river in Kyoto) the moon was shining brightly and sparkling on the flowing river water. As I watched the sparkles while riding my bicycle they appeared to stay by my side, to be traveling along in the night together with me. Enchanted, sparkles and I sung a lullaby together, to the tired shadows of night.

Not long before that night I had visited Byodoin Temple, a UNESCO world heritage site in Uji, Kyoto. In the Phoenix Hall of Byodoin is a collection of 52 wooden bodhisattva statues, of which the one in the above photograph is my favorite. It’s playing the biwa, a traditional Japanese lute. With its serene composure, this lute-playing bodhisattva looks to me like a moon-deity playing heavenly music to the troubled and tired human souls on earth. And so I later imagined myself cycling along the river, together with moon sparkles and a benevolent bodhisattva, singing a lullaby to the tired shadows of night.

It’s a simple poem that I wrote a little over three years ago.

Recently, for the first time since before the covid pandemic started, I came down with a cold. That is to say that luckily, I have not gotten sick—not even a slight cold—for about three years! So I was going over some old poems for this week’s blog post and this one, lullaby, made me smile. This time, I am a tired shadow in the night, and this time, it’s my turn to be sung to. Good night. 🌜✨

magic

September 23, 2022.Reading time 2 minutes.

“You don’t need to believe in magic.
You are magic.
Believe in yourself.”
Emmanuel Dagher

The above quote crossed my path the other day, like an unexpected butterfly or rainbow in the sky. Riveted, I stopped. “Yes!” I thought. “We are indeed magic, and if we just believed in ourselves… no—if we truly knew that we are magic, why anything wonderful, miraculous, and beautiful could be possible!” It is true, don’t you think? That if we arrive, if we show up each day simply as we are—unadorned, messy but real… unafraid to be whatever particular expression of life that we just so happen to be—then our days cannot be anything other than magic and magical. So I was inspired to step out of my personal comfort zone and share this quickly snapped, unfiltered, messy-haired selfie-on-a-whim… to say hello to the world and to you, whoever you may be. We are all, after all, one light and one love.

But, what precisely is magic?

magic

         maybe magic is, 
     a heart cracked open
   to the tender beauty of the world
                    to be
     raw    open     and real
   and tumbled like broken pieces of sea glass
    worn smooth with the grain of tides
   high and low
    of time
                           to be
               to just be
     in this one world 
   both wounded and wondrous
 allowing the soft edges of shadows
   to dance
          into the light
   like sparkles and glitter of rain
     in the sun
   and finally
             finally and at last
                            to stand on the shore
                                      with arms outstretched to the  wide  open  sea
                                                           and declare
                                              here i am my love
                                              here i am

blackness

September 16, 2022.Reading time 1 minute.

the deepest shade of love is black
that unknowable depth
from which all creation comes—and ultimately returns
is the kindest love
unconditional   embracing   infinite
in black, there's every shade of grey
and white is taken in everywhere

in this moment
feel raven wings alight
and hear the midnight of winter solstice
they swirl an elemental vortex
folding into itself
the sharpest cut of diamond

and in the tender arms of blackness
even rainbows find reprieve 
from arching displays of color writ loudly in sky blue

and now somewhere far, far out in the distance nearby
lies a   black   panther
limbs resting softly on the dark belly of the earth
she stirs into the heart of all being
a power
the deepest shade 
of love

the gift

September 9, 2022.Reading time less than 1 minute.

and stumbling along the seashore
she found in the round curves of a rock
her heart
Ah-ha! she exclaimed
Here is the perfect gift to give
my love
This heartrock warm in the sun
is my heart
my heart of eternal love
May the seasons spin round and round and around
and may the storms wail and rage and rage until 
they turn themselves
skyblue
Meanwhile my heart remains here
unchanged
on this seashore—on this woven red strand by dusk
and by dawn
dancing all the sparkles 
the light and the shadows
into one
into one timeless
one timeless and divine
love

captured

September 2, 2022.Reading time less than 1 minute.

clouds have so very much to say
      it seems
 capturing the light and the shadow     both
out here in this summery blue
                                       if i could just fly
    straight up  and 
into those soft billows  and 
                              linger awhile
i'm sure i'd hear a heartbeat  and 
      a silver voice
   singing
singing the shapeshifting story
       of the skies

house of love

August 26, 2022.Reading time less than 1 minute.

in the black ink of sky          
stars dance   
toes dipped in glitter bodies draped in sheer silk    
swirling, arched, sweeping       
they scribe    
a new path across the milky way           
and ignite     
fire in this body burning   
a virgin light       
tumbled raw open and naked     
yet wrapped up in these angel arms             
i'm carried across the threshold   
into a new spiral of glittering galaxies     
into this dance                       
into this eternal           
house of love

beauty

August 19, 2022.Reading time 1 minute.

maybe if i spill open
my heart
at the break of dawn
and let love shine
like sun gold
as it climbs over
peaks tops and ridges
glittering everything into new day

and maybe if i embrace
the light
with noontide soaring
to release my fears from
the shadows secrets and silence
like feathers
they'll erupt into euphoria
and flight

maybe if i serenade
the dark
as dusk deepens
and surrender my dreams
like sand
they drift to ocean beds
singing dancing and shifting
into pearls sparkling in the night

and maybe if i pour
my self
into the soft fold of night
to fall steeped in love
like moons
swollen cradled and hungry
for the round gravity
of blackness

then surely when i dance
for you
until i die
and give my body to a sacred fire
in beauty i will
have danced lived prayed and loved
in beauty i will
embrace death

with the water

August 12, 2022.Reading time less than 1 minute.

i step
into the water
cold tingling
my toes
ankles
the backsides of my knees

swirling all around
submerged 
with the water
i run
twisting and turning
wind like
through wild summer prairies 
and snow-steeped tundra in winter
i run
falling and flowing
light like
through slot canyons
gorges and ravines
i run

with the water
i run
cascading and streaming
over and down ever onwards out ahead and forwards
i run
i run to the ocean
to the magical ocean of my dreams

murmuration

August 5, 2022.Reading time less than 1 minute.

my heart     
like a murmuration of starlings     
races, swooping and soaring     
all throughout these rosé wine skies     
aglow and glimmering twilight     

like a murmuration of starlings     
i'm flying     
here in the light and over there in the shadows     

somewhere, i know there is a pathway or a secret door     
somewhere here in the open wild of these fields, windswept and pink     
or here somewhere, in this enclave of elms, shifting and shady     
i am sure, i am sure...     
here is the pathway or the secret door     

like a murmuration of starlings     
i long for home     
to feel forever     
somewhere here or there or somewhere anywhere     
this skin soft landing     
in your arms     
your arms holding     
holding     
my heart

Michiru Adrienne

Tag: poetry